Popular U.S. television comedian Soupy Sales has died. He was 83 years old. Sales died Thursday at a hospice in New York City. He suffered from a number of health problems.
The U.S. comedy icon was wildly popular in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his pie-in-the-face acts, with thousands of pies smashed over his career.
His television career began with a 1950s children's program that developed into the popular The Soupy Sales Show. He played a host of characters in the show, which featured puppets and popular stars.
Celebrities including Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine appeared on his show to be splattered with a pie. His television fame had begun to fade by the late 1960s, but he continued to appear as a guest in various television shows.
Sales was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina, in 1926. He is survived by his wife and two sons.
Iconic fashion, celebrity and still photographer Irving Penn has died. He was 92 years old.
An assistant to Penn said he died at his home Wednesday in New York. No cause was given.
Known for his graceful, minimalistic portraits, Penn became known as one of the first artists to straddle the line dividing commercial and art photography.
He began his career in the 1940s at Vogue fashion magazine, quickly abandoning his dream of becoming a painter. His preference for shooting his subjects isolated against stark backgrounds soon became legendary.
Penn took a number of iconic portraits of famous people, including painter Pablo Picasso, writer Truman Capote, and Penn's own wife, model Lisa Fonssagrives, who died in 1992.
Later in his career, Penn moved to doing still-lifes and portraits, capturing subjects as varied as cigarette butts to ordinary tradespeople.
A number of his works are on display in museums in the United States.
Mary Travers, the glamorous blond who sang into the middle microphone with folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, died September 16 at 72 after a long battle with leukemia.
Born in 1936, Mary Travers was two years old when her parents moved the family from Kentucky to Greenwich Village in New York City. By the time she was a teenager, Mary was a full-fledged member of the 1950s Village folk scene, though, at the time, she said music was just a hobby, and she had no plans to sing professionally.
That changed in 1961, when Mary met Bob Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman. Grossman had decided to put together a folk supergroup to rival the chart-topping Kingston Trio. He introduced Travers to Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey.
The story of how the group was formed caused many fellow folk singers to brand Peter, Paul and Mary as "too commercial," and not "authentic", but Mary Travers always defended the group's sound and founding, saying they made the music accessible to everyone.
There is no dispute that the trio made folk music popular. Their first album, "Peter, Paul and Mary," reached Number One shortly after its March 1962 release, and remained at the top of the charts for seven weeks. The album contained two hit singles: "If I Had A Hammer"; and "Lemon Tree."
Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest brother of the late President John F. Kennedy and one of the most most influential lawmakers in U.S. history, has died at the age of 77.
Kennedy's family says he died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, MA. The Democratic senator had been suffering from an incurable form of brain cancer for just over a year.
A statement issued by the family described him as "the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our eyes."
He had been missing in the Senate for much of this year due to his illness, forcing him to work on his lifelong signature issue, a national health care system, from his Hyannis Port home.
Kennedy had represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 1962, when he was elected to the seat previously held by President Kennedy. During his Senate career, he was a strong champion of liberal causes, including civil rights, education and immigration, in addition to health care.
In January, the senator collapsed at a luncheon in the U.S. Capitol rotunda following the inauguration of President Obama.
Kennedy was a strong, vocal critic of both the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq in 2003. His passionate, unwavering commitment his views, along with his towering presence in the Senate chamber and his ability to work across the political divide, earned him the nickname "Lion of the Senate."
Mourners, including dignitaries and many Special Olympians, packed a church Friday for the private funeral honoring Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died Tuesday at age 88.
Her daughter, Maria Shriver, and son-in-law, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and other family members carried her casket into Saint Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Hyannis, Massachusetts.
Maria Shriver remembered her mother as a transformative and towering figure who was a hero to the five Shriver children. Maria described her mother, affectionately called "mummy," as focused, relentless, compassionate and kind.
Vice President Joe Biden was among the attendees at the invitation-only funeral Mass. Eunice Shriver's only living brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, has been battling brain cancer and did not attend.
Called the "queen of humanity" by opening speaker, Special Olympian and close friend Loretta Claiborne, Shriver is widely credited with helping to change the world's perception and treatment of the mentally disabled.
In the 1960s, she founded the Special Olympics, an athletic movement for the mentally disabled now held in more than 150 countries. She was the sister of late U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Shriver, who had suffered a series of strokes in recent years, died in the company of her husband, Sargent Shriver, their five children and 19 grandchildren.
The move to begin the Special Olympics was inspired in part by her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.
The organization said Shriver "changed the world for the better like few others in history."
Shriver was one of nine children. Her siblings also included the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while campaigning for president in 1968.
Shriver's daughter, Maria, is a former television journalist who is married to Governor Schwarzenegger.
President Barack Obama has praised Shriver as "an extraordinary woman" who taught the world that "no physical or mental barrier can restrain the power of the human spirit."
Walter Cronkite, the broadcast journalist once called "the most trusted man in America", has died late Friday at the age of 92 after a long illness. The longtime television news anchor kept Americans informed about the great news events of the second half of the 20th century.
Walter Cronkite was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1916, attended the University of Texas and left to take a reporting job at a newspaper in Houston. He made a name for himself as a battlefield correspondent for United Press in Europe and North Africa during the Second World War. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg war crimes trials, then served for two years as chief of the United Press bureau in Moscow.
In 1950, another legendary figure in American broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, hired Cronkite for the Columbia Broadcasting System. In 1962, Cronkite took over as anchor on the network's flagship CBS Evening News.
"From our newsroom in Washington, in color, this is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite."
In November, 1963, Cronkite informed many Americans of the shooting of President John F. Kennedy. "There has been an attempt, as perhaps you know now, on the life of President Kennedy."
Viewers were riveted to their television sets, and as details of the president's death emerged, Cronkite provided a reassuring voice in a time of national trauma.
Four-and-a-half years later, he informed his audience of the assassination of another leading American. "Good evening. Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of non-violence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee."
At a time when just three networks dominated American television, Walter Cronkite and his evening newscast rose to become number one in the news ratings. Projecting an image of confidence and honesty, he served as the network's key anchor for 19 years, and was named in viewer polls the "most trusted man in America." His nightly sign-off, "and that's the way it is," became a catch-phrase.
In the course of his nightly newscasts, Cronkite covered the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and Iran hostage crisis. He also produced many news documentaries and anchored special events, including space launches and the moon landing, political conventions, elections and presidential inaugurations.
In 1981, he retired as anchorman from the CBS network at age 65, but continued to do occasional work as a special correspondent.
His many admirers say that Walter Cronkite set high standards of objectivity and balance in the fledgling television news industry.
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